Brennan: Return of Torture Tactics Up to ‘Future Policymakers’

CIA Director John Brennan gave no ground to his critics during a press conference on Thursday, singing his agency’s praises and saying it “did a lot of things right” in its interrogation program.

It was his first public appearance since a Senate report released on Tuesday exhaustively documented the CIA’s gruesome record of torture and blasted the spy agency for lying about it for more than a decade.

Brennan’s dismissive response to the report was manifest in his refusal to even use the word “torture,” instead referring multiple times to the Bush-administration euphemism of choice: “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs.

Brennan also left open the possibility that some of the torture tactics currently prohibited by President Obama could return in the future. Some torture critics have said that could happen, because the people responsible for torture have never been held accountable and remain unbowed.

“We are not contemplating at all getting back into the interrogation program,” Brennan said.

As for the future, he said, “I defer to future policymakers.”

Brennan reasserted the CIA’s belief that the interrogation program produced valuable intelligence “that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorist and save lives.” But he engaged in a slight rhetorical shift on the issue of whether torture itself “saved lives.”

“Let me be clear, we have not concluded that it was the use of EITs within that program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them,” he said. “The cause and effect relationship between the use of EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainees is in my mind unknowable.”

But one of the Senate report’s central conclusions was precisely that the relationship between torture and “saved lives” is knowable. The answer, investigators concluded, is no, there is no relationship.

The Twitter account belonging to Senate Intelligence chair Dianne Feinstein, who released the report on Tuesday, corrected Brennan in realtime, using the hashtag #ReadTheReport.

The CIA director in no way gave the impression of someone who is under siege, despite the report’s damning conclusions. He began his prepared remarks recalling the morning of 9/11, and ending with an homage to the CIA agents who have died in the line of duty.

On Wednesday, departing Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) reiterated his call for Brennan to resign, and decried the “Agency leadership’s persistent and entrenched culture of misrepresenting the truth to Congress and the American people.”

Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest again expressed strong support for Brennan.

Brennan continued his criticism of the report, which he noted was based exclusively on documents. He expressed a view — probably shared by many torture critics — when he said he wished the committee had spoken to the CIA officers involved in the interrogation techniques and had asked them: “What were you thinking? What did you consider? What was the calculus that you used?”

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CIA: THE ROGUE AGENCY PUTS ON A GLOBAL HORROR SHOW by Michael Thomas December 9th, 2014

To call the CIA a rogue agency is to grossly understate the massive, multi-decade crime spree it has perpetrated against the community of nations and people of the world. There is no other federal department, bureau or agency that has overtly been given both the budget and governmental approval to commit capital crimes at will.

I read somewhere in the comments that comments with 2 links are less likely to get posted. Is that true? Just wondering where my last 2 comments went. I don’t post a lot of comments, largely due to the fact that other readers’ comments usually express what I am thinking, often in a more succinct and more elegant fashion.

The great articles here and the readers’ comments — including all the great links — give me hope that investigative journalism is still very much alive. And the readers illustrate there are more than a few highly intelligent and well-informed people not buying the manufactured slop that the major media outlets usually peddle, and that some Americans do read!

But I am a pretty slow reader, and I am just now learning HTML formatting; so, it takes a while to get through all the articles and comments and put together a simple comment with working links. I am going to continue reading this wonderful site regardless of whether my comments appear or not. But, it is getting very frustrating that it appears I need to follow-up many of my comments with pleas to post them. Coincidentally, my last 2 comments on this article touched on the fact that much of the foundation for today’s enhanced interrogation methods (torture) goes back more than 50 years, to MKUltra, as ec also noted today:

Thx for the link! It’s unbelievable how scientific knowledge of anatomy & the psyche is used since millennia to the detriment of humans. Quote from the article:

The techniques were drawn from the SERE program Mitchell had worked in for years. But instead of familiarizing students with what such torture should look like, and helping them practice ways to survive or resist such torture, now the techniques would be applied to break down prisoners.
(…)
“Learned helplessness” (LH) was a theory associated with a famous American psychologist, Martin Seligman. LH was a lab-derived set of propositions which postulated that when an animal (or human being) is faced with inescapable shock or otherwise unescapable or uncontrolled stress, the ability to cope collapses. LH has long been a theoretical model used to explain clinical depression, for instance.

MKUltra is still being practiced I found out firsthand this year after being hit with bioagents, radiation, direct heat weapons and electric shock. I am surveilled 24/7. I’ve reached out to reporters I’ve known, civil liberty groups and lawyers, all to no avail. Seems like Jeffrey Kaye is the only working journalist with deep knowledge of the CIA’s MkUltra tactics. I am grateful to Cryptome for first publishing my allegations along with names of agents involved. Hearing this ad nauseum may be annoying but I am alerting you all to this reality. Media, please take it seriously.

1) The use of EITs on detainees is not in dispute. It is knowable. And known.

2) Information subsequently provided by the detainees is knowable.
a) Said information was either useful or
b) Said information was useless.
Both possibilities were knowable. Of the two
possibilities, one emerged as the actual outcome.
This outcome is known.

3) Assigning cause to torture of detainees is knowable. And known.

4)Assigning effect to at least one of the two possible outcomes – the actual outcome – is knowable. And known.

5) A relationship between cause and effect will either pair (1) with (a), or with (b). That is knowable. And known.

Exactly what part of this little equation does Brennan find so unknowable ?

Do comments with 2 links tend to have more problems actually appearing or posting? Just wondering what happened to my comment I posted Friday, in response to a comment by darlene.

One of the two links I posted was to an article regarding the “Operation Midnight Climax”
subproject of MKUltra — just one illustration of how far our government will go in their pursuit of effective interrogation methods, “truth serums,” and sexual blackmail/leverage (government-run brothels/safe houses, in the 50s and 60s, where hookers drugged johns with all sorts of drugs, like LSD).

CIA’s Brennan: I Think We’ve Had Enough Transparency For The Time Being
from the oh-really? dept

“Brennan claimed that he’s had enough transparency and he thinks this goes too far:

When asked if he supported the release of the Senate report, Brennan said he would keep his views to himself. But could he share them with the public, “in the interest of transparency?” a Wall Street Journal reporter asked. “I think there is more than enough transparency that has happened over the last couple days,” said the man who was chosen for the job by President Obama. “I think it’s over the top.”

Was Brennan really using “enhanced interrogation techniques” as a euphemism? Or could the reason be that there are other cases of torture going on that are not officially classed as enhanced interrogation, but as “psychological therapy” or “social reeducation”?

I had a ‘pox-on-both-their-houses’ attitude toward the U.S. political parties before Bush redefined torture, and have sided strongly with the Democrats since because it is a duty to common decency, no different than the Germans’ duty to resist the Nazi Party. But the tortuously slow pace, the intense timidity, the paralysis of Democrats on this issue … how can this be explained? Even an omniscient NSA can’t really be secretly blackmailing them all. Is there really so much mindless approval for atrocities that they really feel the public wouldn’t love to see more action?

The one constant at the Intercept is the failure to mention 911 where 3000 people – mostly Americans – were murdered by al-Qaeda. That’s simply because 911 is irrelevant to the use of torture. Under no circumstances is torture acceptable – no matter how many were killed or might yet be killed. The “ticking time bomb scenario” does not overrule international law – ever. Indeed, how quickly the far left jumps on board with the conclusions of the partisan (and ass saving) Senate Intelligence committee report which determined that lives were not saved – even without interviewing any former (or current) past CIA directors. Republicans mostly distanced themselves from the report. It’s also clear that at least some Democrats were briefed on the interrogation techniques used by the CIA without objection.

“…..First, its claim that the CIA’s interrogation program was ineffective in producing intelligence that helped us disrupt, capture, or kill terrorists is just not accurate. The program was invaluable in three critical ways:

• It led to the capture of senior al Qaeda operatives, thereby removing them from the battlefield.

• It led to the disruption of terrorist plots and prevented mass casualty attacks, saving American and Allied lives.

• It added enormously to what we knew about al Qaeda as an organization and therefore informed our approaches on how best to attack, thwart and degrade it…..”

Regardless of whether even one life was saved, it’s clear that after 3000 lives were lost to al-Qaeda, all possible methods to prevent further attacks was on the table. No one knew the plans – so this was a race against time. Whatever else might be said about the decision to use enhanced interrogation, the decision was the right one to help prevent further attacks. This doesn’t mean that the use of torture is always justified, but there are certain circumstances that torture might be necessary to prevent the death of innocents. Post 911 was one of them.

What is your point? In the beginning of your comment, it sure seems like you were saying there is no reason for torture, a certainty with which I agree. Then near the end of your comment you say “but there are certain circumstances that torture might be necessary to prevent the death of innocents.” The first is a definite and the latter conditional. Please clarify. The distinction is important.

The Intercept is one of the few places where you will not find the parroting of prepared propagandistic talking points to counter the ugly reality of our government’s policies. Should you want to read that pablum you can find it at most media outlets as well as CIAsavedlives.com.

Every year we voluntarily sacrifice 1000 to 4000 people to the health effects of high sulfur jet fuel ( http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2012/05/ultra-low-sulfur-jet-fuel-radar , http://partner.mit.edu/projects/environmental-cost-benefit-analysis-ultra-low-sulfur-jet-fuels ). This is a voluntary sacrifice our society makes to the Great Lord Moloch so that we might have 1.6 to 7 cents cheaper jet fuel per gallon. Also, elite opinion gently reminds us that so long as we keep burning jet fuel that is up to 3000 ppm (0.3%) sulfur, we create stratospheric haze that has the net effect of cancelling out about six months of global warming. Now yes, there are wild-eyed crazy people who talk about “chemtrails” being a sinister government conspiracy, but of course, once you see it for what it is, you see that it is beyond the possibility of reproach. You wouldn’t propose torturing people to get some environmental crusader’s dream enacted, or want to see travellers have higher ticket prices or even somehow inconvenienced at the terminal, just to stop 1000-4000 deaths a year. It is a cost of doing business. But why is this too much to pay for fundamental human rights?

Why do you fail to recognize that 911 happened because our government personnel failed us, you, me, everyone. There was plenty of information in the hands of the people that are payed very well to deal with said information and they failed to act. Should we torture them to find out if they are Soviet or Chinese or Hamas spies? I believe your views are un-American so should you be tortured? Additionally, How many people in how many intelligence agencies provided unreliable inormation that was used to send us into Iraq?

What nationality were the “attackers” on 9-11 and where did we end up waging war? There is information that suggests the Bush family protected the Saudi Royal family and was apart of the assasination attempt on President Reagan and the assasination of President Kennedy. If anyone is to be tortured it should be the Bush family, would you agree? Me, The Bush’s should be tried for treason not tortured!!!

I guarantee if we were allowed to carry firearms onto planes 9-11 would not have happened!

“……Why do you fail to recognize that 911 happened because our government personnel failed us, you, me, everyone…..”

Well, that is certainly true. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda declared war on us twice and we did not take the threat seriously leading to 911. I am no fan of the Saudis, but currently there is no evidence that the Saudi government financed Bin Laden. They banished him from the Kingdom. However, the Taliban allowed Pakistan-supported terrorists training camps to flourish in Afghanistan leading to the death of innocents world-wide.

Saddam Hussein had a history of avoiding inspections which resulted in 17 UN resolutions encouraging Saddam to conform. In addition, Saddam’s greatest enemy (Iran) was in the process of developing nuclear weapons when the program was exposed in 2002. So the decision to remove Saddam was a long term strategic move. The primary motive for attacking Iraq was regime change – to get rid of a brutal dictator (and his sons) capable of developing nuclear weapons. In addition, he sponsored terrorism against Israel and attacked Israel with scud missiles capable of carrying chemical weapons as he was being thrown out of Kuwait. He used WMDs.

Stop bringing things into our (Americans) realm of responsibility like Iran and Iraq and Israel. That regions occupants is the problem of that regions occupants. If I remember correctly the land that is now Israel was apart of a British colony? Where are they, the British?

The same intelligence agencies that failed us on 9-11 also were and probably still are deeply involved in both Iran and Iraq since at least the 60’s. How much of that stuff you mentioned is due to our intelligence personnel? How many of the top Government figures in the middle east were/are on our Intelligence Agencies payrolls? If you do some checking you will find that there are many similarities between the way we went into Vietnam and the way we went into the “War on Terror.”

That leads me to your “death to innocents worldwide” concern and justification for 13 years of war and torture. We stood up to the most powerful military in the world and won to become The United States. Nobody came to help us break the shakles of tyranny. The “death to innocents worldwide” should be dealt with by those who are most affected by those deaths just as we dealt with the Royal Crown. We need to focus on ourselves first before anything else. Because of people like you and your un-American views we focus on un-American problems and that has created the current un-American experience in this country. That should outrage Americans because we are no better off now than if we were under the rule of the Royal Crown, Russians, Japanese, Germans or the Chinese. The current prison population proves that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another torture report, this one published in Brazil, about complicity between the US and the Brazilian military regime. Glenn is probably aware of this one, living in Rio, but the rest of us should note this.

It’s worth noting that this was not the only military regime involved with the US on torture, during those years. Also, it wasn’t just the president of Brazil who was one of its victims: the current presidents of Uruguay and Chile also were tortured by US client regimes then. We should also be curious where Brennan and others were, and what they knew, during this period.

Rousseff is known for her stoic demeanor, but the President was unable to hold back tears as she gave a speech at the unveiling of the commission’s final report on Wednesday. “Brazil deserves the truth. The new generations deserve the truth,” she said. “And most of all, those who deserve the truth are those who lost family members, friends, companions and continue to suffer as if they died again each and every day.”

Contrary to the U.S. Senate report, the Truth Commission has identified the individuals responsible for human rights abuses by name. Over 300 people are identified, roughly 100 of which are still alive. Now, many are calling for those responsible to face trial not only for torture, but also for the assassination or “disappearance” of 425 people over the course of the military regime. –story

Thanks for the link. There is an org, http://www.soaw.org/ dedicated to closing down the School of the Americas, where many of the dictator’s regime were trained. The military changed the name to WHINSEC(Western Hemisphere Institute for SEcurity Cooperation) possibly thinking that would throw people off their track. All this militarism worldwide is linked together. Thanks again.

Yet the focus on the Bush administration serves a useful purpose. While the UN has called for prosecutions of Bush officials, Obama himself is excused on the pretext that he banned domestic torture in 2009, and reiterated the ban abroad this November.
(…)Rehabilitating the torture regime

Yet Obama did not ban torture in 2009, and has not rescinded it now. He instead rehabilitated torture with a carefully crafted Executive Order that has received little scrutiny. He demanded, for instance, that interrogation techniques be made to fit the US Army Field Manual, which complies with the Geneva Convention and has prohibited torture since 1956.

But in 2006, revisions were made to the Army Field Manual, in particular through ‘Appendix M’, which contained interrogation techniques that went far beyond the original Geneva-inspired restrictions of the original version of the manual. This includes 19 methods of interrogation and the practice of extraordinary rendition. As pointed out by US psychologist Jeff Kaye who has worked extensively with torture victims, a new UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) review of the manual shows that a wide-range of torture techniques continue to be deployed by the US government, including isolation, sensory deprivation, stress positions, chemically-induced psychosis, adjustments of environmental and dietary rules, among others.

Indeed, the revelations contained in the Senate report are a mere fraction of the totality of torture techniques deployed by the CIA and other agencies. Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen born and raised in Germany who was detained in Guantanomo for five years, has charged that he had been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, repeated beatings, water-dunking, electric shock treatment, and suspension by his arms, by US forces.

On Jan. 22, 2009, retired Admiral Dennis Blair, then Obama’s director of national intelligence, told the Senate intelligence committee that the Army Field Manual would be amended to allow new forms of harsh interrogation, but that these changes would remain classified:

“We have large amounts of unclassified doctrine for our troops to use, but we don’t put anything in there that our enemies can use against us. And we’ll figure it out for this manual… there will be some sort of document that’s widely available in an unclassified form, but the specific techniques that can provide training value to adversaries, we will handle much more carefully.”

Obama’s supposed banning of the CIA’s secret rendition programs was also a misnomer. While White House officials insisted that from now on, detainees would not be rendered to “any country that engages in torture,” rendered detainees were already being sent to countries in the EU that purportedly do not sanction torture, where they were then tortured by the CIA.

Obama did not really ban the CIA’s use of secret prisons either, permitting indefinite detention of people without due process “on a short-term transitory basis.”

Half a century of torture as a system

What we are seeing now is not the Obama administration putting an end to torture, but rather putting an end to the open acknowledgement of the use of torture as a routine intelligence practice.

But the ways of old illustrate that we should not be shocked by the latest revelations. Declassified CIA training manuals from the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, prove that the CIA has consistently practiced torture long before the Bush administration attempted to legitimize the practice publicly.
(…)
The Obama administration is now exploiting the new Senate report to convince the world that the intelligence community’s systematic embroilment in torture was merely a Bush-era aberration that is now safely in the past.

Do not be fooled. Obama has rehabilitated and recalibrated the covert torture apparatus, and is attempting to leverage the torture report’s damning findings to claim moral high ground his administration doesn’t have. The torture regime is alive and well, but it has been put back in the box of classified secrecy to continue without public scrutiny.

I have spoken to Mr. Kaye about my own electronic zersetzen and as an expert in torture does not find my story implausible. In addition, I found a link to a 1977 New York Times story which revealed that the CIA was using shock, poisoning and psyops as well as other methods to torture. I have been subjected to all of the methods cited in this article yet they are done when I am alone proving I am under 24/7 surveillance. And in fact 11 coax cables run from under the unit next to me occupied by a government contractor ‘renting’ a foreclosed unit in FannieMae’s possession. In addition, on the other side of me just moved in a man specializing in nanotechnology who alllegedly was recruited to Chicago to work for Obama as “the National Security Director of the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House, where he managed presidential appointments at the Pentagon, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Central Intelligence Agency. ” Like the man in the Fannie Mae unit, this renter is very diminuitive in size, an asset for one expected to climb between walls to poison, surveil and shock.

The NYTs story was found on the site WhatToKnow.info, a highly informative and authoritative site on the government’s mind control programs using declassified CIA documents. AmericanGestapo has previously linked to military site showing the technology in use.

Don’t mean to make you cry Gina. I think I am doing perhaps better than expected and maybe more than I have a right to. These programs are indeed designed to create ‘learned helplessness’ with the goal of forcing targets to commit suicide. As Dr. Robert Duncan points out, the targets’ are so overwhelmed by shock and the mindboggling technology that they become frantic and hysterical while exclaiming their plight to family and friends who find claims implausible and thus aide the perps’ by promoting the idea that the target is emotionally deranged. Myron May was likely a new victim who was unable to find someone to believe him thus pushing him into his desperate act. Note that he did not shoot to kill any if the UF students. Just keep helping to educate the public. And if you pray, keep my family in your prayers. Best,EC

Thank you Gina, which begs the question, what now? We have a very small window of opportunity right now and it won’t stay open very long. How can we get people to demand real change in a sustained manner? This is not a rhetorical question. I’m looking for answers and welcome any thoughts. The US public has the attention span of a gerbil, most do, obviously not us. I was asleep until sometime in 2005-06 so if I can wake up so can everyone else. There is a point beyond which it will become nearly impossible to regain our freedoms. Speak up people.

I think the problem is really more complex. As I have stated on some other comment threads, the public knows about the torture at least as long as the off grid prison in Guantánamo is known. We know about the torture of war prisoners, because the soldiers themselves boasted of their deeds via videos they posted on YouTube. We know about the torture because of this documentary about James Steele:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ca1HsC6MH0

As the torture report is a farce & as there is not the slightest intent to stop it as the title of Dan Froomkin’s article says:

Brennan: Return of Torture Tactics Up to ‘Future Policymakers’

the question arises why does the government & the msm (=the corporations) wants us to jump on their band wagon right now at this moment?

2) On another site there was a comment that the torture report is published in time to have some ‘hard stuff’ for the election campaigns.

3) Again on another comment thread someone said that Israel has sacked the USA. I must say that at least the US American culture has been completely destroyed.
———————————–
The fact is that perversity & insanity is in power. A complete lack of empathy & conscience means that parts of the brain don’t work, but the logic part can only work properly in harmony with the other parts. How can these people be restricted? One thing is for sure: People who are nuts are dangerous. Normally one let them have their way for the sake of peace, without knowing that they would only carry it further.

As my reply doesn’t show up, I repeat it without the links, but put in the keywords which you can copy in the search machines:

I think the problem is really more complex. As I have stated on some other comment threads, the public knows about the torture at least as long as the off grid prison in Guantánamo is known. We know about the torture of war prisoners, because the soldiers themselves boasted of their deeds via videos they posted on YouTube. We know about the torture because of this documentary about James Steele:
YouTube: Iraq’s sectarian war | James Steele: America’s mystery man | Guardian Investigations
As the torture report is a farce & as there is not the slightest intent to stop it as the title of Dan Froomkin’s article says:

Brennan: Return of Torture Tactics Up to ‘Future Policymakers’

the question arises why does the government & the msm (=the corporations) wants us to jump on their band wagon right now at this moment?

1) I had the idea that they want to drown out the fact that the TPP & the TTIP are about to be ratified. We know about these Free Trade Agreements only thanks to WikiLeaks:
Google search: WikiLeaks – Updated Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) – IP Chapter (second publication)
Short explanations of all Free Trade Agreements (FTA):
Google search: Truthout – Before the Zombie Apocalypse – These Four Trade Deals Were Ravaging the World
The articles about the deadline where not in English & mentioned it only in one sentence.

2) On another site there was a comment that the torture report is published in time to have some ‘hard stuff’ for the election campaigns.

3) Again on another comment thread someone said that Israel has sacked the USA. I must say that at least the US American culture has been completely destroyed.
———————————–
The fact is that perversity & insanity is in power. A complete lack of empathy & conscience means that parts of the brain don’t work, but the logic part can only work properly in harmony with the other parts. How can these people be restricted? One thing is for sure: People who are nuts are dangerous. Normally one let them have their way for the sake of peace, without knowing that they would only carry it further.

“Former Vice President Dick Cheney, the de-facto leader of the national-security team that failed to stop the most successful terrorist attack in U.S. history, is taking to the airwaves to defend the Bush Administration’s subsequent torture of prisoners.”

Cheney goes on to declare that “the men and women of the CIA did exactly what we wanted to have them do in terms of taking on this program.”
Got that? Bush was fully briefed, and the CIA did exactly what Bush and Cheney asked. But attentive viewers would notice that Cheney subsequently contradicts himself.

Later in the interview, Baier notes a particularly depraved tactic. “At one point, this report describes interrogators pureeing food of one detainee and then serving it in his anus,” he says, “something the agency called ‘rectal rehydration.’ I mean, is that torture?” (More to the point, did Bush and Cheney know about that? Is it “exactly” what they asked the CIA to do?) “I don’t know anything about that specific instance,” Cheney said. “I can’t speak to that. I guess the question is, what are you prepared to do to get the truth about future attacks against the United States. Now, that was not one of the authorized or approved techniques. There were 12 of them, as I recall. They were all techniques we used in training on our own people.”

So suddenly the White House wasn’t fully briefed and the CIA went beyond what was authorized, using tactics that weren’t “exactly what we wanted to have them do,” and that Cheney implies he can’t speak to and has never known about before.”

CIA Director John Brennan gave no ground to his critics during a press conference on Thursday, singing his agency’s praises and saying it “did a lot of things right” in its interrogation program.

Some sort of this:

It is uncertain who or what actually caused the fire—whether accident or arson. Suetonius and Cassius Dio favor Nero as the arsonist, so he could build a palatial complex. Tacitus mentions that Christians confessed to the crime, but it is not known whether these confessions were induced by torture. (…) It was said by Suetonius and Cassius Dio that Nero sang the “Sack of Ilium” in stage costume while the city burned.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero#Great_Fire_of_Rome_.2864_AD.29

Getting a lot of things right doesn’t makeup for the few things the CIA got wrong. Torture is WRONG. Playing cover-up to prevent these things coming to light doesn’t make them right.

Criminals do a lot of things right–except for the one or two things they do wrong–yet those one or two things are the reason we put them in jail. In the scale of time 99.9% of the things mass murders do is “right” except for the 0.1% of things they do that are REALLY, REALLY “wrong”.

“The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s extensive use of torture gives a new meaning to the term “shock and awe.” Obama’s words “We tortured some folks” is a gross understatement. Will anyone ever be punished for these crimes? “

“One agency of the executive branch (the C.I.A.) complains that no one was interviewed,” he said in an email. “Another element of the executive branch (D.O.J.) actually conducted lots of interviews,” he added, referring to the Department of Justice.

“Its investigation made it difficult for a Senate committee to conduct interviews. So check there. Then D.O.J. objects to disclosing them. So checkmate there. That leaves the C.I.A. free to complain about lack of interviews. Pretty neat,” he said.

Last month, in a presentation in Geneva before the United Nations Committee Against Torture, which oversees compliance with a global anti-torture treaty, the Obama administration pointed to Mr. Durham’s investigation as having fulfilled the United States’ obligation under the treaty to investigate torture.”

Why are you letting the discussion stay on whether “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” were effective? There can be NO, ZERO, reasons for torturing a fellow human being. When this obsession with the efficacy of torture is allowed to dominate the debate your better angels have already lost. If we allow this mindset, our hamanity and our whole society, becomes a conditional concept. If we can pull torture out of our bag of tricks whenever we feel threatened it won’t be long before torture is the goto strategy and our first tool to use. I will not relent on this issue. STOP talking about the effectiveness of torture. Speak up people.

Hello jgreen7801, thank you for your reply. I almost missed it! The first way is by taking complaints of ‘targeted individuals’ seriously. If anyone wants to know why Obama protects Brennan it’s because he is knowledgeable and probably leading this amplified zersetzen campaign. I’ve been commenting ad nauseum because Glenn is not the only reporter who presumably reads The Intercept. Maybe someone out there will take these reports seriously and investigate.

And to everyone who feels strongly against this Administration’s record or civil liberties, perhaps someone would take the courageous step and start a Change.org petition to demand that Brennan be removed as director of CIA.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, if you pray keep me and my family in your prayers!

Yes, I do pray. I will pray for you and yours. I ask that you pray for my family, please. As far as taking complaints of targeted individuals seriously, I already do. I’ve done some research and will continue to do more as I’m able. I know that most people find the possibility of their government targeting it’s own citizens preposterous and it is a hard thing to admit even if you are willing to concede the possibility. As far as I know I have not been a target but that does not preclude others being one. 10 years ago I would have never thought my government was capable of torture and yet here we are. Keep faith, as one of the three things left to us.

Not jgreen7801 here, but I did catch a few minutes of the aforementioned Mr. Snowden on C-Span. You may want to check it out. I found the sound quality made it difficult to make out some stuff… there’s a transcript, such as it is…

So as a target, should I be worried that my newest neighbor (moved in a week ago) iis reportedly going to work for Obama’s former hiring executive for the Pentagon, Homeland Security and the CIA? And that the boss’ much-touted company that received a $1 million grant from DOE has no telephone number but like most fronts have a webpage with a contact page? AND the boss is a footnote in the Benghazi talking point stories? Glenn, it’s a good time to inspect my house!

How stupid is this Brennan? In trying to defend this practice he inadvertantly damns it. It is “unknowable” whether real intel was gleaned. Well if you are torturing some folks you had better damn well know. If you are not absololutely sure it provided intel, why continue torturing? (Not that there is ever a justification for torture.) Ironic that this guy is head of an intelligence agency.

Reminds me of Cheney’s recent comments. We didn’t lie! GW Bush knew exactly what was going on….OK so it went right to the very top. Thanks Dick. Doh!

Just Gotta Luv that Alfred Hitchcock-like profile of Director Brennan at the top of this article.

Ol’ Hitch was known as the ‘Master of Suspense’ and Brennan is now the ‘Master of Torture’ (and ‘Master Drone Assassin’). Both Directors exploited voyeurism and the macabre but differed in their vehicles — one used fictional movies as his outlet while the current villain used/uses real-life human bloodletting, maiming, death, and untold suffering.

This article allows me to vent about what is going in the media surrounding this torture (yup, that’s what it is) report- all the apologists parading themselves in the media attacking the report and justifying what they call “enhanced interrogation.” This phenomenon makes me as nauseous as what I’ve read from the report. Any question of the msm carrying water for the military/intelligence/corporate complex has got to be dispelled if any thinking person considers this. If they are allowing these weasels to propagandize and justify such depraved acts, they are shamefully complicit. I know, I know, I should pay NO attention to msm, but I do like to keep an eye on what they’re doing and what folks are talking about…

The other night BBC World News America (airing on PBS) had Katty Kay (who I used to think was pretty good) talking to Michael Hayden about this. Of course Brennan was all over the place today, and NPR also had an article about Cheney decrying the report. Well, I happened to catch the first few minutes of ABC World News Tonight and —– well, Martha Raddatz had the segment on Brennan’s press conference. I almost hit the roof (hadn’t been online or seen any news at that point). Immediately after the segment, I picked up the phone and called WNT and told the receptionist (that’s the only human you’re likely to get) that I was outraged that they would have someone on there to defend the indefensible and that we must oppose torture, period. I also fired out an e-mail to the NPR ombudsman. One thing I said in that was the torturers, architects and authorizers thereof needed no forum other than from the defendant’s table in a court of law. I don’t know how much good such things do, but I just felt I had to give voice to my extreme outrage.

And for future reference, TI’ers -here’s a list of some phone and fax numbers for some media outlets:

Here’s a little insight into the CIA … Quote … It was fun fun fun , where else could a red blooded american boy lie cheat deceive steal kill rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all mighty CIA scientist george white , nice eh , now here’s another quote : Science is but a perversion of it’s self unless it has , as it’s ultimate goal the betterment of humanity . Nikola Tesla 1919 . Watch the doc engines of domination for a better understanding of the evil being done to humanity . tc all .

Great quote from Tesla, Darlene. I never heard that one. It’s so true. Thanks for sharing it.

But the quote from White I’m too familiar with; it’s been haunting and gnawing at me for the last decade. After the Abu Ghraib exposure, while doing a little reading on interrogation and torture, I first stumbled across the larger than life George Hunter White, who was not a CIA scientist, by any stretch of the imagination, but a CIA “contract” employee or “operative,” and an agent for the Bureau of Narcotics, (predecessor agency of the modern Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA]). White was famous for his ability to drink copious amounts of gin and for his incredible undercover work, including running the Operation Climax subproject of MKUltra, under the alias Morgan Hall:

“I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?”

People keep emphasizing the torture, but there is also the ILLEGAL DENTION. I’d like to know how these people got into custody in the first place. Kidnapping? Human trafficking laws? Isn’t there usually a paper trail? What happens when someone just disappears? Are there still missing persons cases open because of this?

How do you set up a secret or private prison? Laundry? Food? Doctors? Prison guards? What do you tell the neighbors? Sounds like someone should go to Europe on a fact finding mission. Are they all accounted for? Any prisoners gone missing? Should we get a search and rescue dog and go digging around these “Black Sites?” What about health issues related to torture? What if some of these female prisoners ended up pregnant due to “uber-enhanced interrogation”?

Technically there are still dozens who we know are being illegally detained, namely those who have been cleared for release from Gitmo but are still languishing there. We don’t even need to answer those questions to be aware of those illegal detentions. But, yes, those questions do need to be asked and answered truthfully, and, unfortunately probably never will be.

“…his agency’s praises and saying it “did a lot of things right” in its interrogation program.”

Yes, and I’m sure the Germans made some very decorative lampshades. That doesn’t for one second allow anyone to say they “did a lot of things right”.

It’s a war crime. A crime against humanity. The exact kind of crime we prosecuted at Nuremberg. This isn’t a “policy dispute” or a “teachable moment” or “something that happened years ago”.

If these criminals don’t deserve the most severe punishment the courts can mete out – from the president on down – then there literally cannot be any crime worthy of punishment in the United States. We have become a nation that flaunts the fact that we allow certain groups of people to commit the most violent, heinous and egregious crimes imaginable, and they live out their days in taxpayer funded mansions painting their fucking feet in the bathtub.

We’re consumers as they like to refer to us, not citizens. As if they aren’t. Subtle changes in definitions is all it takes to co-opt a system. POW=illegal enemy combatant. POW has rights, the other, none. Imminent threat no longer means what we all know it means. You’re correct, we no longer have a functioning democratic republic. Did we ever? Hard to know, isn’t it.

“If these criminals don’t deserve the most severe punishment the courts can mete out – from the president on down – then there literally cannot be any crime worthy of punishment in the United States.”

This is what US voters want. Some may plead ignorance and innocence when confronted with these inconvenient realities, but The Party can always count on their votes. (Recent polls have shown even more Americans support continued war in Iraq today than in March 2003, and re-endorsement day is just two years away, in Nov. 2016..)

I stay home to avoid gratuitously mingling with the Stasi Rodents, so I watch one and I’m not proud of it… and they hack it anyway — even flashed me that famous torture pic of the guy standing on a box with electrodes hooked up (some evil, evil shit).

TVs do inform voters of how to think and say about events, and that’s interesting sometimes, but too predictable. I must spend more time on the book: Torture Lite®

He expressed a view — probably shared by many torture critics — when he said he wished the committee had spoken to the CIA officers involved in the interrogation techniques and had asked them: “What were you thinking? What did you consider? What was the calculus that you used?”

What complete and utter bullshit.

Michael Davidson, who was the top lawyer for the Senate Intelligence Committee until his retirement in 2011 and who worked on the first four years of its investigation, portrayed the executive branch’s stance as a Catch-22.

“One agency of the executive branch (the C.I.A.) complains that no one was interviewed,” he said in an email. “Another element of the executive branch (D.O.J.) actually conducted lots of interviews,” he added, referring to the Department of Justice.

“Its investigation made it difficult for a Senate committee to conduct interviews. So check there. Then D.O.J. objects to disclosing them. So checkmate there. That leaves the C.I.A. free to complain about lack of interviews. Pretty neat,” he said.

In other words, nothing’s to stop a future administration from doing more of it. Laws? What laws?

Also it suggests that the absence of torture currently, if they’re not doing it currently, is only by President Obama’s grace and favor, not by any statute or long-term principles.

In the twentieth century the international community has come to recognize the common danger posed by the flagrant disregard of basic human rights and particularly the right to be free of torture. … Though many of these aspirations have remained elusive goals, that circumstance cannot diminish the true progress that has been made. In the modern age, humanitarian and practical considerations have combined to lead the nations of the world to recognize that respect for fundamental human rights is in their individual and collective interest. Among the rights universally proclaimed by all nations, as we have noted, is the right to be free of physical torture. Indeed, for purposes of civil liability, the torturer has become like the pirate and slave trader before him hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind. — Filartiga v. Pena Irala, 630 F2.d 876 (2nd Cir., 1980)

“What were you thinking? What did you consider? What was the calculus that you used?”

April 1863: the US was losing a war with slaveholder rebels, and the continued existence of the country was in doubt. Yet that month they published the Lieber Code (General Order 100), and included this calculus —

14. Military necessity, as understood by modern civilized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of the war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war.
15. … Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.
16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty–that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

I might add that Franz Lieber, author of GO 100, had some personal calculus when he wrote this. Two sons, Union Army (1 WIA); one son, Confederate (KIA). I might add that the Lieber Code would become one of the foundations of the modern law of war and int’l humanitarian law.

The torture game largely ran by know-nothings that lacked both skill and knowledge, and perpetrated on those unknowing of any thing of much importance. The tools of torture are merely being carefully put under wraps for future use. One bad event one bad leader and the USA is official back in the torture business.

Our country is becoming a criminal enterprise. The banks have leveraged new laws in our current budget that again leaves all US citizens responsible to cover their losses on derivatives. We get to back any losses in the bank’s casino-derivative-gaming. The banks did not even allow one generation to pass before sanctioning the same scam that caused the great recession.

I’m beginning to fear there aren’t any courageous souls left. We’ve normalized deceit — every telecom company customer service rep works from a script full of lies. Lying has been normalized in corporate America. Mission statements are meaningless — it’s all about money, power, influence and status.

If only the stupidly-called “torture report” actually called the methods “torture” this would be much more easily actionable.*

FOR TORTURE IT WAS. But no official language acknowledges this. Funny, that. Obama says (now) “TO MY MIND” some of what happened constituted torture, thus disqualifying himself from officially saying so. Meanwhile he simply slaughters “suspects” and those unknowns near them with drone strikes and other targeted killing. Funny that.

Actually it isn’t funny at all. It’s fucked up.

*Feinstein is largely to blame for this, I believe. She could easily have called a spade a spade, but she – like all the establishment – wants to say merely (like any lying abuser) “We won’t do it again, sweetheart, we promise…”

What does ” . . misinterpreting the truth” mean. That’s what Mark Udall said in his Senate speech. How is the truth misinterpreted? With a lie? It’s (slithering out) that G.W.Bush & Cheney, & the Congress did know what exactly the CIA operatives were doing. The story is getting muffled up by the Executive & Legislative politicos.

I watched that video and am more than a little surprised.
First by calling into question the accuracy of the report, implying it may not be true as though it’s some sort of fabrication by the Democrats (misdirection perhaps).
Then stating that in the wake of 9-11, that “any reasonable person” would use these methods to elicit information to prevent further attacks, i.e. stress positions, sleep deprivation etc. that they are reasonable for extracting intelligence and don’t amount to torture? WTF?
Even with respect to water-boarding, saying that it was used during troop training (some 20,000 troops) and that none of them suffered so it’s okay and not torture, again WTF? I’m sure the prisoners were able to call a stop to it when it got too much for them.

What I’m most surprised at is that there are officials who seemingly justify the use of torture when circumstances warrant it, meaning someone did something bad to us, lets torture the motherf#[email protected]

It is almost impossible for me to fathom that there are so many people in a supposedly civilised society that accept the use of torture against persons when they feel it may benefit them.
I fear I am in the minority in the belief that torture is never to be used by the state in any circumstance.